


None but honest enterprises

by Veto_power_over_clocks



Series: Do Re Mi Do, Do Re Mi Do [2]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon divergence - MTMTE 5, Gen, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-12 20:03:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15347634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veto_power_over_clocks/pseuds/Veto_power_over_clocks
Summary: In one universe, Drift cut off Pharma's hands in Delphi and Ratchet replaced his own with them. In this universe, Pharma falls to his death and only one of his hands is recovered.Brainstorm knows he can help. If Ratchet doesn’t want a new, better, ‘artificial’ hand, then too bad for him. Deal with it, Ratchet!





	None but honest enterprises

**Author's Note:**

> Companion fic to "[Not to guess, but to know](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15078803)", telling Brainstorm's side of the story, but it should be able to stand on its own; however, I think you get a better effect if you read the other one first (this fanfic spoils some plot points from the other one).
> 
> Again, I would like to thank Soundwave-and-Casettes and elise for beta-reading this. Both of you have been wonderful and deserve many good things in life (for today, I hope everyone is nice to you both and that you find some money on the ground).

 

The best idea anyone on this ship (besides yourself, of course) has ever had and will ever have was to open a bar. You’re sure that most of the bots on board would object to any of their ideas ranking lower than one of Swerve’s, but, well, none of their ideas has ever given you such a perfect asset for your plans.

See, here’s the thing about bars: people gather in them to drink. That might sound obvious, in fact, it might be so obvious that everyone tends to ignore how important this is, and that’s the reason you’re so happy about it. Is everyone following? No? Very well, you’ll explain. If most of the ship’s crew is gathered in the bar, you know exactly where to find almost everyone. Also, all the engex they’re drinking comes from the same source, which means that if you ever need to incapacitate everyone, well, putting something in said source will make the job easier. Is it clear now? Yes? Great!

So! Maybe your time machine isn’t ready yet, but when it is, you’re sure that the bar will prove useful. The only problem is that Swerve has decided to forbid entrance to anyone carrying a briefcase, which is frankly petty. Not that anyone will be able to stop you from going in when you need to do so, but it’s still annoying to be kept outside until then (you need to respect the rule for now so as not to draw attention to yourself), especially because you need a glass of engex right now (not for consumption, mind, but because the whole ‘might need to incapacitate everyone someday’ thing means you need to know what exactly you can put inside the engex that will serve the purpose, and you’re not using your own reserves for this experiment), so you’re stuck waiting outside the bar until someone agrees to buy you a drink. You hadn’t expected that ‘someone’ to end up being Ratchet.

You ask him to buy you some engex and he immediately assumes you’ll use it to build a weapon, which is simultaneously flattering (why, yes, you’d be perfectly capable of building a weapon with engex if you decided to do so) and insulting (you are also perfectly capable of making things that aren’t weapons), but it’s also a good story, so you play along with the idea.

**[Note to self: come up with an engex-based weapon.]**

Ratchet goes in and you follow him with your optics. He moves oddly, his left arm held stiff at his side, as if it’s completely paralyzed. You’d heard that his hands had been failing and that he’d gotten the right one replaced with Pharma’s, but that doesn’t really explain his rigid left arm. Maybe the problem has spread from his hand to the whole limb? Is that possible? Sounds possible.

**[Note to self: look into the possibility of designing an exoskeleton that allows the wearer to move paralyzed limbs.]**

When he returns with your drink you realize that it’s not that his left arm is immobile, it’s that he’s actively keeping it still, although the hand is still a problem.

You’re sure you could do something about that.

“Want me to make you a new hand?” you ask him, mostly out of politeness, because why wouldn’t he want a new hand?

And then Ratchet goes and refuses the offer, implies that a constructed hand couldn’t be as good as a forged one and finishes the whole thing by running off to hide in Swerve’s bar.

You’re left staring at the spot where he’d just stood, turning over his words in your mind. He said that the new hand would be ‘artificial’, which is, well, an accurate word, but the way he said it bothered you. It reminded you of the way some forged mechs used to say ‘knock-off’.

Unbelievable.

You might have lost a bit of respect for Ratchet.

.

.

.

.

The walk back from the bar to your lab is spent telling yourself that if Ratchet doesn’t want a new, better, ‘artificial’ hand, then too bad for him, because you could make a hand that would make every forged bot cry out of envy. He’s the one missing out, not you.

The walk back from the bar to your lab is also spent trying to bury old concerns. Memories are akin to a nasty virus, you can fight them and win, but they always find a way to return. They hide in the unlikeliest parts of your systems, waiting for the appropriate trigger to lower your defenses so they can make their triumphant return, bring you back to the moment you understood what you’d been made for and in which you decided who you were. You remember the moment you reviewed the details of your design and you saw all the areas of your body where they’d used cheaper materials, the ones that had been crafted following the most basic templates. Your fingers twitch in discomfort when you think of the first time you had a brilliant idea and realized that your hands, while good enough to pull a trigger, were too clumsy for tools.

That makes you smile. The beauty of thought is how unpredictable it is, how sometimes it gives you a way out while trying to trap you. Because when you realized that the hands that had been constructed for you weren’t good enough, you decided to improve them. And you did improve them.

You flex your fingers and your smile widens.

As soon as you enter your lab you clear your work table, then you search for every document related to hands that might be among your files. Next you look for what you have about upgrades to already-existing body parts. Finally you get some old essays regarding the differences between forged bots and constructed ones, just in case someone had come across a difference that could affect your work, but you put those datapads at the bottom of the pile, the last thing you’ll look over.

Feeling satisfied with all the information you’ve gathered, you grab the first datapad within your reach, make your way to Ratchet’s hab suite and settle to wait in front of his door.

If Ratchet doesn’t want a new, better, ‘artificial’ hand, then too bad for him, because you’re making him a new one. Actually, scratch that, you’re making both hands for him, because what you make is bound to be better than Pharma’s hand and you refuse to have someone walk around with an inferior hand; people might think you made that one as well.

Deal with it, Ratchet.

.

.

.

.

It takes Ratchet a while to arrive, which gives you enough time to comprehensively read the datapad you brought along. It’s a complete description of the workings of hands, the basic elements necessary to make them, common wiring patterns and popular variations on them, how to build a joint, what are the best materials. The more you read, the more you realize how much room for improvement there is, starting with the wiring and continuing with the range of movement.

**[Note to self: look into how to increase the delicacy of movement.]**

**[Note to self: look into how many wires it’d be possible to fit into one hand. You’re sure you can find a use for each of them.]**

**[Note to self: since you’ll be putting so many wires in the hands anyway, maybe you could look into adding an antenna? Remotely controlled hands could be** **_so_ ** **useful.]**

You didn’t prepare any arguments because you don’t actually care what he has to say on the matter, so as soon as you see Ratchet you say, “I’m making new hands for you.”

He _hates_ it, you can tell by the way he tenses, how his optics widen for an instant before narrowing, how it takes him a moment to speak, like he’s trying to find the right words to tell you to frag off.

“You have no right,” is what he says.

“I’m making them anyway,” is what you reply, when what you want to do is ask him how he can dare to doubt constructed hands in front of you, how he can imply that forged hands are better after bringing Ambulon to the Lost Light, how he can be so blind after millions of years of war. How!?

Somehow, Ratchet ends up ‘allowing’ you to make the new hands (like he could have stopped you), even agrees to be measured for the design. He insists he’s not going to use them, but you don’t listen, he has already lost. As soon as he sees the finished product he won’t want to keep his graceless forged hands.

.

.

.

.

The scientific method has a series of steps, but all that matters is order. It doesn’t matter that everything will be chaotic as soon as you start working; all that matters is that you remember the beginning and that you don’t lose sight of the goal, no matter how many detours you take along the way.

You have to start with a hypothesis, so you go to your board and write, _If forged hands are superior to constructed ones, then trying to build better hands is futile._

You organize the datapads on your desk by subject (structure and design, potential improvements, propaganda) and start reading. It’s nothing you haven’t studied before, so it doesn’t take you long to go through everything. The propaganda doesn’t stir any memories, because its attacks are directed towards the constructed mechs that didn’t have a clear purpose, those that were made before the war and thus didn’t have the very important role of being cannon fodder; for once, your disposability is your protection.

What the propaganda does, though, is worry you about what Ratchet will say about the quality of the new hands. Since he thinks forged hands are better, who says he doesn’t think that only forged hands can make good constructed hands? Maybe that was the reason he insisted on making Rodimus’ arms after that stunt he’d pulled with the quantum engines and the sparkeater; he just didn’t trust you to make good ones.

You go to your board, erase your first hypothesis and write, _If a forged hand is superior to a constructed one, then anything built with my hands will be inferior to what forged hands can make._

**[Note to self: convince Ratchet to let you use Pharma’s hand while making his new ones, just in case he really is that prejudiced against your abilities. The end is more important than the means, so if you must betray your own hands to get Ratchet to eat his words, you will.]**

You immediately erase the second part of the sentence. Ratchet knows you’re an M.T.O., but nobody else does, and you don’t want anyone who walks into your lab finding out.

To distract yourself, you re-read the information regarding possible improvements. There’s a lot about possible weapons there, but you’re sure that Ratchet would disapprove.

Almost as a game, you start making holographic 3D models of different types of hands, just to get an idea of the potential that lies in this challenge you’ve given yourself.

It’s only when you’re surrounded by dozens of models that you realize making hands might actually be more interesting than you thought at first.

.

.

.

.

As predicted, Ratchet doesn’t want any weapons in his hands. You talk to him about it, try to convince him, both because it’s always good to have extra weapons and because if you keep talking about guns he won’t notice that you’re speaking in plural, that you’re planning to design two hands instead of just one.

You make him sit down so you can study his hands, measure them and take note of every detail. Turns out that Pharma’s hand is slightly heavier than Ratchet’s, nothing terrible, but still something Ratchet’s bound to notice.

“Do you want the new hands to be like Pharma’s, or like your own?” you ask him when you’ve finished the 3D model of his current ones.

He seems surprised at the question, looks down at his hands, so you keep talking about your ideas for the design. You wonder if he has finally noticed that you’re not only making one hand, or if he has finally become unable to lie to himself about what you’re doing, because the whole time you have been talking about ‘the hands’ (plural) that you’ll make.

“I only need the left hand, so make it like Pharma’s,” he says. This confirms your suspicions that he notices the extra weight, if he didn’t he probably would have preferred to have a new hand that was similar to his old one.

The original plan had been to make both hands and hope that Ratchet found the left one to be so good that he ended up admitting he was wrong and came to you asking for the right one. You weren’t a big fan of that plan, since it relied on Ratchet getting over his pride. Now? Well, all you have to do is completely disregard Ratchet’s request and model the new hand after his own, thus forcing him to either get the right one as well or spend his life noticing the extra weight of Pharma’s hand.

“Good then,” you tell him, nodding, then turn and stare at the wall, trying to force yourself to stop smiling. It’s a good thing you have your faceplate, otherwise Ratchet would know that he just lost.

A quick look at your board reminds you of the hypothesis you’d written there so, for the sake of science, you ask Ratchet to let you have Pharma’s hand for a few days. Unsurprisingly, he refuses, but you can’t give up on getting a better look at a forged hand, see if there truly is a difference, so you ask him to lend you the one he used to have. He agrees to that, at least.

.

.

.

.

There’s nothing noteworthy in a forged hand. You weigh Ratchet’s old, useless hand, take it apart, make holographic models of every component of it before putting it back together and then you take it apart again, just in case there was something you missed the first time around.

Eventually you start wondering if there is a difference in the way it feels when it’s used. You look at the models of Ratchet’s hands and then bring up a model of your own, start comparing the differences, the main one being the weight (yours are lighter) and the quality of the materials (you’ve improved on your hands through the years, but there are still pieces that could be replaced with something better), while everything else is irrelevant. Maybe something on the pressure plates? Pain receptors? You wonder. Of course, the only way to know for sure would be to use the forged hand, but it’s too late to go to the medibay to make First Aid swap your right hand for Ratchet’s. Well! You can do that tomorrow.

Today will have to be about potential sensibility differences between forged and constructed hands.

You grab a hammer, a flamethrower and some wires and ready yourself for an unpleasant hour.

**[Note to self: clean and repaint your hands before going to recharge. Scorch marks don’t look good.]**

.

.

.

.

The first thing you do in the morning is move your briefcase’s chain from your right wrist to your left one, then take Ratchet’s old hand and go to the medibay to ask First Aid to swap your right one for it.

First Aid stands still after hearing your request; you guess he’s staring at you in disbelief and/or confusion, but it’s hard to know for sure.

He reaches for Ratchet’s hand, examines it and says, “Brainstorm, isn’t this Ratchet’s?” in a tone that implies he knows the answer, but is hoping to be wrong in his assumptions.

**[Note to self: body language reader to understand bots without visible faces. Wait, no. If they used it on you your plans would be ruined.]**

**[Note to self: body language reader to understand bots without visible faces, with a spark recognition system that makes it unable to read you.]**

“Yes!”

“You know that this hand can’t move, right?”

“Yes. I just want to use it for a few hours.”

First Aid doesn’t say anything to that, just gives you back the hand. He crosses his arms, uncrosses them, leaves them hanging awkwardly at his sides. You think you hear him sigh.

“Does Ratchet know you have that?” he asks, pointing at the hand you’re holding.

“Don’t worry, he let me borrow it.”

First Aid nods slowly.

“Okay.” He resets his vocaliser before continuing. “Look, Brainstorm, it’s not that I doubt what you’re saying, but I don’t feel comfortable doing this without Ratchet’s authorization. It’s still his hand. Do you mind if I call him?”

“Not at all, go ahead,” you say, gesturing with Ratchet’s hand towards First Aid’s arms, since you assume his communicator must be located in one of them.

He goes to a corner to talk privately and you sit on a berth, swinging your legs back and forth as you wait, and fiddling with the fingers of Ratchet’s hand.

**[Note to self: find a way to store the kinetic energy from leg swinging. There are enough hyperkinetic bots on board that it might be a good alternative power source.]**

Ratchet arrives quickly. Since he has an actual face, you get to see the whole range of emotions he goes through when he hears what you asked from First Aid: disbelief, confusion, some amusement even.

Neither he nor First Aid seem impressed when you mention you’re interested in figuring out if there are any differences when it comes to pain receptors, no matter your attempts to reassure them that you won’t do anything permanently damaging.

You guess that’s the reason Ratchet decides to stick by your side the whole day. You’re actually grateful for it, because, as First Aid had warned, Ratchet’s right hand doesn’t move at all and you constantly forget it, so you keep trying to grab things with it, which you end up dropping; this happens so often that Ratchet starts catching what you drop before it hits the floor. There’s also the fact that Ratchet’s hand is noticeably heavier than yours, so you keep leaning to the right and scraping your wing against the wall, but eventually Ratchet notices and starts making you stand up straight.

You’re frustrated in less than two hours. There is so much you want to do, thoughts you need to write down, inventions to fix and improve, but your right hand won’t cooperate and your left one isn’t enough. You don’t understand how Ratchet can be okay with losing half of his skills when there are solutions out there.

You wonder what it is that Ratchet’s afraid of. Not being as good a surgeon as he used to be? It’s still better than not being able to do anything. Not finding a new occupation? Please, there’s always something to do, you know that. You know everything there is to know about reinventing yourself.

You guess that Ratchet’s problem is that he’s never been anything but a medic. His first words were probably a complaint about someone’s poor health, followed by instructions on what to do to improve it. You, on the other hand, have been so many things (Autobot, M.T.O., Genitus, weapons engineer, Brainstorm, lovesick fool, Decepticon) that you’ve learned perfectly well what you truly are, to the point that you would know even if they cut your hands off and left you floating in the endless vacuum of space.

.

.

.

.

Getting your own hand back is relief. You flex your fingers, twiddle your thumbs, write down things just because you can before settling down to continue designing Ratchet’s new hands.

**[Note to self: make some spare hands for yourself, just in case.]**

You are inspired. You erase your half hypothesis from the board and fill it instead with notes about wiring, drafts for the location of the antenna (you are making these hands remote controlled. No matter what.), drawings of what you think the hands will look like with certain changes made to them. You spend the whole night just designing, lost in the thrill of creation, until your hands start shaking from tiredness and you have trouble understanding what you write, so you have to admit to yourself that it’s time to go back to your hab suite.

The next day you feel like you deserve a treat for your hard work, so as a game you try to figure out where to put a gun without Ratchet noticing when he looks at the design. Now, it’s not only about the location of the weapon, it’s also about the type of weapon. You start drafting, not sure what you like best (guns, blades, lasers, so many options!), so you make holographic models based on each weapon. You don’t know how many you have finished by the time you leave to recharge.

The following day you go back to Ratchet’s hands. You make more holographic models of them, each one slightly different from the others, and include everything you came up with on the first night. By the end of the day, there are holographic models everywhere, but you aren’t truly satisfied with any of them.

On the third day, you go back to weapons. You’d walked into your lab determined to come up with the final design for Ratchet’s hands, or just pick one of the many you’d already done, but you’re still unhappy with all of them. You don’t know what’s missing and you’re tempted to delete everything and start from zero, which is never a good idea. Even failures are good for something, even if it’s just as a reminder of what not to do.

To keep yourself from erasing two days’ worth of work, you bring up the models that include weapons. They are perfect. Okay, they could do with some tweaks, but you don’t hate them. You start fixing what’s wrong with each of them, until they are truly perfect, but instead of feeling better, your dissatisfaction increases.

You’re just making hands. They shouldn’t be difficult. Now that the war is over, they are the sort of thing you should be focusing your efforts on; the universe doesn’t need more guns, yet they are your specialty. What are you supposed to do now? Yes, you’ve reinvented yourself before, but somehow this feels like a bigger change than going from soldier to engineer.

What will it say about you if you can’t make perfect hands unless they contain a weapon? What does it say about you that you can only think of your work as perfect if it’s a weapon?

You look at your work. You were unfair to Ratchet, about his inability to change, because, in a way, you never really changed. You started as a product of war, born from it and made for it, and then you became its servant. Everything you’ve ever made, including your time machine, has been the result of the war, in some way or another.

This is the first time you’ve made something that has no ties to the conflict, to any conflict.

You should sleep. Everything will be clearer after that. You have a berth set up for times when you don’t feel like going back to your hab suite, so you settle on it and try to keep your mind blank until unconsciousness comes.

.

.

.

.

For a moment, just after waking up, you look at all the holographic models surrounding you and you can’t remember why you made them, you just know that they are your work and you feel proud of yourself, of your accomplishment. Then you remember all the doubts that had been running through your head last night, all the ugly memories that tried to resurface, all the secrets you’ve kept about your origins. You cover your face with your hands and try to catch the rapidly fading feeling of satisfaction that had filled you just a moment ago. You hold onto that pride and remind yourself of what you are, of what you always have been even when the rest of your identity has changed: a genius.

You sit on the berth and take a moment to sweep away those leftover insecurities from the war. Then (when you feel like yourself again, when ‘Genitus’ is just a meaningless name on some medical files and ‘M.T.O.’ is again just a set of initials that you can pretend have nothing to do with you, when you feel like your pride and determination are strong enough to carry you through the day) you start on a new design. You incorporate everything you liked from the previous ones and when it’s done you stand up and clap. If nobody else is around to give you the standing ovation you deserve, you’ll just do it yourself, no big deal.

Ratchet finds you a bit later, surrounded by all the rejected models that you’ve decided to keep studying. You are tired. No matter what you told yourself, the fact that you designed all those weapons remains. You almost say it to Ratchet, you almost ask him what exactly you’re supposed to do now that there’s no war for you, but in the end you just show him what his new hands will be like. He’s so impressed that he doesn’t even comment on the fact that you designed two hands instead of just one.

.

.

.

.

Ratchet starts spending the day in your lab, watching you work. At first you thought it was because he didn’t trust you not to put a weapon in the hands, but when he started asking you about the possibility of tailoring hands to different jobs, you realize that he’s no longer thinking about himself, that his imagination has taken him to the future, that he’s already picturing the two of you setting up a prosthetics shop.

Okay, maybe he’s not imagining the two of you starting a business together, but he does seem interested in what you could accomplish. He hasn’t mentioned the supposed inferiority of constructed hands, instead he has kept asking you questions about your work, suggests what he thinks could be improvements, comments on how certain elements, with some minor changes, could be applied to already existing hands. You reply to what he says, because some of his ideas are good and you like having someone to, well, brainstorm with, and some of his ideas are awful and you must inform him of it, and then the two of you are designing different kinds of hands together.

 **[Note to self: once back on Cybertron, look into the possibility of getting government funding for this. If you aim it towards empurata victims they’ll** **_have_ ** **to give you money.]**

At some point you remember that everything started because you’d needed some engex to figure out the most efficient way to (lightly) poison most of the crew. That glass of engex is still somewhere in the lab, you should get back to it after you’ve finished making the hands. For a moment you wonder if it’s right of you to spend time on this, if maybe you should be focusing entirely on finishing your time machine, then you smile to yourself, because it’s a _time machine_. If there’s one thing you have in abundance, it’s time.

Besides, if you’re gonna save Quark, you think you’d like to have something more than just weapons to show him.

.

.

.

.

When the time comes to replace his left hand with the one you made, Ratchet decides to remember all his prejudices about constructed hands and insist on keeping Pharma’s hand. He refuses to take the constructed right hand you made when he goes to the medibay to get the left one attached, so you have to take it for him. He doesn’t ask why you’re doing that, maybe he thinks you’re so confident in your skills that you’re expecting him to change his mind immediately.

You’re very happy that your faceplate keeps your undoubtedly smug smile from being seen, you’d hate to give yourself away when you’re so close to succeeding.

At the medibay, you’re free to be as smug as you want, since once there First Aid and Ambulon immediately start admiring your work. You talk about the process, the design, the materials and your own greatness, you say so many things that it would never occur to them that you’re keeping quiet about something.

First Aid makes the swap and Ratchet tests his new left hand. He flexes his new fingers, grabs various tools to assess the range of movement and tests the pressure plates, looking concerned the whole time.

He stands up and walks around, leaning slightly to the right, the weight of Pharma’s hand still noticeable, then quickly turns and directs an almost murderous look at you. You just shrug, smiling under your faceplate.

**[Note to self: find a way to weaponize murderous looks.]**

He groans, raises his arms in front of himself and studies his hands. You can see him trying to decide whether to get the right hand replaced as well or just resigning himself to spend the rest of his life adjusting his posture. Your ego wants him to pick the former and the empathy you still have hopes for the same, for his sake.

You count the seconds in your head. After eleven seconds he clenches his right hand, lowers it and points with the left one towards the one you’re holding.

“Give me that,” he tells you. “Might as well get the set.”

It feels as good as a standing ovation.

 

* * *

  

 

> I am an Engineer. In my profession, I take deep pride. To it, I owe solemn obligations.
> 
> As an engineer, I pledge to practice integrity and fair dealing, tolerance and respect, and to uphold devotion to the standards and dignity of my profession. I will always be conscious that my skill carries with it the obligation to serve humanity by making the best use of the Earth's precious wealth.
> 
> As an engineer, I shall participate in none but honest enterprises. When needed, my skill and knowledge shall be given, without reservation, for the public good. In the performance of duty, and in fidelity to my profession, I shall give my utmost.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> — "Obligation of an Engineer"

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you have a very nice day/afternoon/night. Kudos are always appreciated and comments put a smile on my face.
> 
> Useless thoughts/extra notes about this fic and the other one can be found [here](http://veto-power-over-fanworks.tumblr.com/post/175428269470/useless-notes-on-the-do-re-mi-do-do-re-mi-do)
> 
> If you liked this fic and feel like promoting it, would you please reblog [this post](http://veto-power-over-fanworks.tumblr.com/post/176113229120/none-but-honest-enterprises)? Thank you!


End file.
